In short: #ALIVE (2020)

Original title: #살아있다 (#sal-a-iss-da)

I think I’ve already mentioned that I’ve grown a bit tired of zombie/infected outbreak movies. Why, things have gotten so bad, I didn’t even like the much praised Train to Busan. Though my problem with that one was all that rather embarrassing and hilariously ineffective emotional manipulation that had me in tears of laughter come the climax.

So I wasn’t terribly interest in this South Korean Netflix production directed and written by Cho Il-hyeong with Yoo Ah-in as a survivor whose videogaming shut in tendencies are pretty helpful for once. Turns out I was wrong again, for the film’s actually well-made (okay, that’s basically a given in a movie from South Korea), effective and fun. It also doesn’t desperately try to milk one’s tear ducts as if they were cow udders, coming by its actual emotional beats the honest way, through careful characterisation, and an intimate presentation of our protagonist’s desperate situation. While the zombie and action sequences are fun and well done, the film’s core is in its presentation of loneliness and quiet desperation, the way it feels when the world around you slowly falls apart, and a few too many of your hopes are crushed. But the film’s also great at the more positive things, the sudden large importance of small hopes and achievements, and the life-saving heft of human companionship, as seen when the film introduces its other protagonist, as played by Park Shin-hye.

I also admire the film’s willingness to underplay its more tragic elements, treating them with dignity instead as a way to make its audience feel something (damn it!). Which of course is the best way to actually make an audience feel something.

Really, by now, basically everyone can film a generic zombie movie sequence or ten and call them a movie. The difficulty is in getting the human elements of such a story right, and that’s what #ALIVE does best.